Alaska Senator Is Guilty Over His Failures to Disclose Gifts

Tuesday

Oct 28, 2008 at 5:21 AM

Calling the verdict “unjust,” Senator Ted Stevens, the Senate’s longest-serving Republican, asked voters to re-elect him to a seventh term.

NEIL A. LEWIS

WASHINGTON — Senator Ted Stevens, Alaska’s dominant political figure for more than four decades, was found guilty on Monday by a jury of violating federal ethics laws for failing to report tens of thousands of dollars in gifts and services he had received from friends.

The jury of District of Columbia residents convicted Mr. Stevens, 84, on all seven felony counts he faced in connection with charges that he knowingly failed to list on Senate disclosure forms the receipt of some $250,000 in gifts and services used to renovate his home in Girdwood, Alaska.

Mr. Stevens, a consistently grim-faced figure, frowned more deeply as the verdict was delivered by the jury foreman, a worker at a drug counseling center. Mr. Stevens’s wife and one of his daughters sat glumly behind him in the courtroom.

In a statement issued after he had left the courthouse, Mr. Stevens was defiant, urging Alaskans to re-elect him to a seventh full term next week.

He blamed what he called repeated misconduct by federal prosecutors for the verdict. “I will fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have,” he said.

“I am innocent. This verdict is the result of the unconscionable manner in which the Justice Department lawyers conducted this trial,” he said. “I ask that Alaskans and my Senate colleagues stand with me as I pursue my rights. I remain a candidate for the United States Senate.”

Nonetheless, the verdict is widely expected to write an end to Mr. Stevens’s long political career, which has moved in tandem with his state’s rough-and-tumble journey from a remote territory to an economic powerhouse.

Mr. Stevens was instrumental in promoting statehood for Alaska when he was a young Interior Department official in the Eisenhower administration and then went on to represent the state in the Senate for 40 years. Over that time, he used his steadily accumulated influence over federal spending, notably using his membership on the Appropriations Committee, to steer millions, perhaps billions, of dollars in federal money to his home state.

The verdict comes a week before a second jury of sorts, the voters of Alaska, will decide whether to return him to the Senate or elect his Democratic opponent, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage. After Mr. Stevens’s indictment in July, he asked for a quick trial so he might clear his name before Election Day.

If Mr. Stevens loses his seat, the trial’s implications could be felt on a broad political scale, helping Democrats in their drive to win enough seats in the Senate to give them a filibuster-proof majority of at least 60 votes. Within an hour of the verdict’s becoming public, Democrats in Senate races around the country immediately sought to make the conviction an issue for their opponents, demanding that those who had received money from Mr. Stevens, who was generous with contributions to his colleagues, return it.

If Mr. Stevens wins and insists on keeping his seat, his fate will be in the hands of his Senate colleagues. A senator can be expelled only by a two-thirds vote of the entire Senate, so a conviction does not automatically cost a lawmaker his seat. Since 1789, only 15 senators have been expelled, most for supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War, the Senate Web site states.

In 1982, the Senate Ethics Committee recommended that Senator Harrison A. Williams, Democrat of New Jersey, be expelled because of his conviction on bribery, conspiracy and conflict of interest charges in the Abscam scandal, and in 1995 the committee recommended the expulsion of Senator Robert W. Packwood, Republican of Oregon, for sexual misconduct. Both men resigned before the full Senate could vote.

Should Mr. Stevens be expelled or resign on his own, the Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, would most likely have to call a special election to fill the vacancy, according to state legal officials.

Ms. Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, issued a statement late Monday, saying she was “confident that Senator Stevens will do what’s right for the people of Alaska.”

Governor Palin did not specify what that was. She did ask that the verdict be respected, saying that it “shines a light on the corrupting influence of the big oil service company that was allowed to control too much of our state. It was part of the culture of corruption I was elected to fight. And that fight must always move forward regardless of party or seniority or even past service.”

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said: “This verdict is a personal tragedy for our colleague Ted Stevens, but it is an important reminder that no man is above the law. Senator Stevens must now respect the outcome of the judicial process and the dignity of the United States Senate.”

The Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, issued this statement after the verdict: “Senator Stevens was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and now must face the consequences of those actions. As a result of his conviction, Senator Stevens will be held accountable so the public trust can be restored.”

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of Federal District Court delayed setting a date for sentencing until after a Feb. 25 hearing on motions from Mr. Stevens’s lawyers.

Under complicated guidelines that are no longer mandatory, Judge Sullivan has wide discretion in setting a sentence, although lawyers familiar with the subject said it was difficult to conceive of a situation in which Mr. Stevens would not be required to spend time in jail.

In addition to his expected appeal, his supporters are also likely to explore the possibility of obtaining a pardon, or some form of executive clemency like a commutation of any sentence, from President Bush, a fellow Republican, before he leaves office.

The verdict came after more than three weeks of testimony, the highlight of which was Mr. Stevens’s taking the calculated risk of testifying in his own defense.

Government prosecutors used evidence and testimony to paint a picture of Alaska in which several of Mr. Stevens’s wealthy friends, keenly aware of his political status, were eager to shower him with gifts. The indictment charged that he had received some $250,000 in gifts and services from a longtime friend, Bill Allen, the owner of a huge oil services construction company, and gifts from other friends like a sled dog and an expensive massage chair.

Mr. Allen, who was convicted for his role in a scheme to bribe Alaska state lawmakers to help his oil exploration projects, agreed to cooperate with the government and have his telephone conversations with Mr. Stevens recorded.

At one time, the two men were friends, thrown together by politics and oil money. Mr. Allen, who was the prosecution’s chief witness, testified that Mr. Stevens knew he was receiving the goods and services free and even sent an emissary to ask that no bills be sent.

Mr. Stevens’s defense was largely built on the notion that he had not asked for, and had no use for, many of the goods and services he received. In the case of the massage chair, he said it had not been a gift from Bob Persons, a friend and restaurant owner who had bought it from a Brookstone store and sent it to the Stevenses’ Washington home. It was a loan, Mr. Stevens testified, even though it had remained in his Washington home for more than seven years and he once wrote to Mr. Persons that he enjoyed using it and even fell asleep in it.

Moreover, Mr. Stevens asserted that his wife of 28 years, Catherine, was assigned to oversee the remaking of the Alaska home from a simple A-frame cabin to a grander, two-story residence fitted with two decks, a new garage and amenities like a whirlpool, a steam room and an expensive gas grill.

The verdict came relatively swiftly. The jury began deliberating last week. But it was obliged to start all over Monday morning when a juror was replaced by an alternate because of the death of a family member. In midafternoon, jurors sent a note saying they had finished their work.